Treatment groups see windfall from slots

Michael Osborne, executive director of the Problem Gambling Council of Maryland, says if state money becomes available, he plans to seek funding for a 24-hour problem-gambling hot line.

Michael Osborne, executive director of the Problem Gambling Council of Maryland, says if state money becomes available, he plans to seek funding for a 24-hour problem-gambling hot line. (Sun photo by Elizabeth Malby)

As the battle over casino-style gambling heats up in Maryland, an unlikely group is waging its own behind-the-scenes scramble for a piece of the action.

Counseling services and other organizations that work with problem gamblers - groups that might be expected to campaign against proposals to legalize slot machines - are jockeying for a share of the dollars that the electronic gambling devices would generate.

At issue is control of an estimated $6 million the state would set aside to run a problem-gambling hot line and to pay for treatment programs under a proposal that has passed the state Senate and is awaiting action this week in the House of Delegates.

That social services windfall would be nearly twice as much as any state spends on gambling addiction programs.

"We do not legalize cocaine in order to have drug treatment programs, but that's exactly what we're saying here - that we have to legalize gambling to treat gambling addicts," said Valerie Lorenz, director of the Compulsive Gambling Center Inc. of Baltimore.

Lorenz, who, unlike many of her colleagues, has publicly warned Maryland policy-makers of the risks of opening the state to thousands of new slot machines, said treatment dollars shouldn't depend on expanding gambling.

But that's what is happening. Maryland once provided modest funding for problem-gambling counseling, but that was eliminated from recent budgets. It would be restored and expanded - if the bill a House committee will take up tomorrow becomes law.

The bill, an amended version of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s slots plan, would permit 15,500 slot machines at six locations in the state. It also calls for an annual tax of $390 per machine to fund treatment services.

The estimated $6 million the tax would generate is far more than the $3.5 million annually spent in Indiana, the state that spends the most on treatment for problem gamblers, according to the Association of Problem Gambling Service Administrators.

It is a paradox that has unfolded in many places as casino-style gambling has spread across the country: Those who treat problem gamblers depend on money from the kind of gambling they decry to deliver treatment services.

Most of these service providers typically stand aside during the political debate over whether a state should legalize casino-style gambling - joining the fray only to argue that money be set aside for their programs.

"We are and always have been neutral" on expanding gambling, said Keith S. Whyte, executive director of the nonprofit National Council on Problem Gambling in Washington.

The council has 34 state chapters, including one in Maryland, and its mission is to serve as an advocate for problem gamblers - conservatively estimated at 2 percent to 3 percent of the U.S. adult population, he said.

"Gambling is an activity that many people choose to engage in," said Whyte, who previously worked for the American Gaming Association, the gambling industry's chief lobbying arm. "We're not going to fight over whether it's demon rum.

"We also recognize that most people are able to gamble without harm. The decision of whether or not to legalize gambling is for a community or state to make."

'Gives them green light'

The Rev. Thomas A. Grey, who heads the Rockford, Ill.-based National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, said it is disingenuous for treatment professionals to declare neutrality on gambling expansion.

The message, he said, is that it is fine to bring more gambling into a state as long as money is provided for problem-gambling hot lines and treatment services.

Grey said research has shown that gambling addiction rates double within 50 miles of a casino. Treatment professionals ought to oppose expansion that will create more gambling addicts, he said.

"If they're saying let's make more [addicts] so we can have more services, then it's pretty pathetic," he said. "It creates more victims to help more victims. It's like in Vietnam, saying we've got to burn the village to save the village."

In defense of neutrality

Joanna Franklin, who heads the Maryland Council on Problem Gambling, defends the group's neutral position on the governor's slots proposal, noting that the state already has compulsive gamblers and has done little over the years to help them.

She said expansion of legalized gambling has proved to be the "easiest way for any serious money" to become available for treatment services in most states. Otherwise, she said, the problem is generally ignored.

Rachel Volberg, president of the National Council on Problem Gambling's board of directors, said: "When you prohibit a very popular set of activities and drive them underground, it becomes harder, rather than easier, to help folks who get into difficulties with those kinds of activities."

"The classic case of Prohibition was that more people died from bad liquor than died from cirrhosis of the liver when alcohol was legalized," said Volberg, a gambling researcher from Northampton, Mass.

She and Whyte say the focus should be on dealing with problem gambling through programs of prevention, education, treatment, enforcement and research.

Casino companies contribute out of "enlightened self-interest," as a way to display their concern for the issue of problem gambling, Whyte said.

"We don't change our policies to try to generate funding," he said. "We absolutely do not accept any restrictions" on money that is given.

Franklin said the Maryland Council on Problem Gambling will seek to acquire state funds if a slots bill passes and money becomes available. She said the group will try to get money to run hot line services, a public awareness campaign and clinical-training programs for counselors to work with gambling addicts.

Another contender for state dollars will be the Compulsive Gambling Center Inc., the Baltimore-based residential and outpatient treatment program headed by Lorenz.

Her center runs on a shoestring budget without state support and struggles to keep its doors open, she said. Nevertheless, Lorenz said, she opposes expanding any type of legalized gambling in Maryland - even if that means treatment money doesn't become available.

One of Lorenz's former clients, Michael Osborne, also said he plans to seek state money, if it becomes available, to operate a 24-hour problem-gambling hot line.

Osborne is the executive director of the Problem Gambling Council of Maryland, a nonprofit group that his wife incorporated this year to launch a statewide gambling hot line.

Franklin said a scramble is on among social service agencies and other groups that want to get involved in gambling treatment.

"There are a lot of people coming out of the woodwork," Franklin said. "A lot of different treatment agencies are trying to position themselves so when money becomes available they are in a position to get it."